My Favorite Things – ‘Top 5 Movies That Made This Grown Man Weep’

Ed’s Note – This piece was originally posted in July 2006. When I caught a Comment on my Cousin Jason’s Biggerboat site stating my Aunt Sharon’s intention to reveal a list of film’s that made my Uncle Ron (a grown man if there ever was one) cry, I decided to repost this here to provide her with a forum for that list. Aunt Sharon – Lay it on us.

When I started this little project aimed at documenting my Top 5’s in all areas of entertainment, I laid out one simple rule. In order to make the list, the media has to coax some sort of visceral or emotional reaction in me. I have to feel a charge in my gutt, convulse in laughter or stain my cheeks with a dash of Niagara.

For this list, I decided to tally the 5 flicks that bring out the chick in me. As always, feel free to add to the list in the Comments section below. Yes, it’s there even if your sole intent is to ridicule me for revealing the vast layers of my soul. Hey, it’s my site and I’ll cry if I want to.

5. Terminator 2

The Terminator: Why do you cry?John Connor: You mean people?The Terminator: Yes.John Connor: I don’t know. We just cry. You know, when it hurts.The Terminator: Pain causes it?John Connor: No, it’s when there’s nothing wrong with you, but you cry
anyway. You get it?The Terminator: No.

One would think that the greatest sequel ever made would find its way onto my Top 5 Sequels That Best Their Predecessors, Top 5 Movies for Guys Who Like Movies or Top 5 Robert Patrick Robotic Performances – but no – this sci-fi spectacle managed to make me gush. In fact, if the T-800 or Uncle Bob or whatever handle he was going by could have caught me in The Cameo circa Summer 1991, he’d have grabbed me by the scruff, stared deep in my countenance and barked “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

The scene that gets me every single time I view this film is the end sequence where John Connor is forced to lower his pal – and father figure – the T-800 into a vat of molten metal. I don’t know if it’s John Connor absolutely losing it (a performance perfected by the knowledge that he was moving from Cameron to Direct-to-Video Pet Semetary II within days) or Brad Fidel’s haunting score or a premonition that 13 years later Arnie would defame his greatest role with an overcooked “Talk to Da’ Hand” quip. All I know is, T2 gooses something in me and now that I write this I realize it’s been a full 6 years since I watched it and I could use a good cry.

As he’s being lowered into lava, The Terminator tells John – “I know now why you cry but it is something I can never do.”

Don’t worry buddy. I’ve got you covered.

4. Edward Scissorhands

There’s a classic Seinfeld episode (The Barber) where Jerry is caught cheating on his regular barber Enzo with his newest stud stylist – Enzo’s nephew. A battle royale rages and is only quelled when a broadcast of Edward Scissorhands grabs their attention. Enzo sums the movie up perfectly – “That Johnny-ah-Depp. He make-ah me cry.”

That goes for two of us, Enzo.

I’m a huge Tim Burton fan – have loved his flicks since Pee Wee’s Big Adventure – and often find something to enjoy in his few misfires. When Scissorhands released – with an early Depp performance that would prove indicative of his career aspirations to escape the Teen Beat cover boy status Hollywood was all too eager to thrust upon him – the film caught me up in its magic.

From one angle, it can appear to be a trite fairy tale and sermon on the evils of Suburbia and the desire to destroy what is different. In typical Burton fashion, he dresses up the familiar in pretty funky clothes and creates real cinematic magic.

Now it’s not the oddball pairing of Depp’s Scissorhands with Winona Ryder’s cheerleader Kim – although that love story has its moments – most notably Kim’s ice dance under Edward’s makeshift snow blower set to a classic Elfman choral arrangement. Nope, the tracks of my tears lead back to a handful of flashbacks that pepper the film. In these marvelous sequences, we meet The Inventor (played by the late, great Vincent Price) who oversees elaborate Rube Goldberg devices solely designed to pump out sugar cookies. All this is practice for his passion project – building his own personal Pinocchio. Depp’s wordless yet incredibly expressive performance in these sequences – as The Inventor teaches his unfinished charge proper manners and the pleasures of poetry – are heartbreaking. It all culminates in The Inventor’s sudden, silent death – leaving Edward “unfinished”. As he reaches for his Inventor, his Papa, and his pincers slice through a brittle gingerbread man. That’s when I lose it.

I’m a sucker for holiday movies. After all, it’s when we get back together with our families and over the course of a collective meal or two, we wish that we could freeze time and stay secure in the warm comfort of home. Holiday movies do wonders to replicate those warm fuzzies.

Writer-Director John Hughes may have lost his perch, but in the 80’s he reigned over Hollywood and produced some of the most indelible character-driven comedies. The Breakfast Club. Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. Sixteen Candles. They’re all representative of a specific time and place and are sewn so tightly to the fabric of my existence that they share equal footing with Raiders, Jaws, Aliens and all the other hallmarks of my childhood.

Hughes is also responsible for the trifecta of holiday flicks, beloved by me, that have coaxed a tear or two. Home Alone made me a bit misty when Kevin McCallister glanced out his window and saw his creepy old neighbor reunited with his granddaughter on Christmas morn and Christmas Vacation (arguably the greatest film in that series) tore a tear when Clark found himself alone in his attic watching old 35mm family movies – set to a great Ray Charles ditty.

But none of those hold a candle to the final moments of Planes, Trains & Automobiles. As Steve Martin’s Neal finds himself on Thanksgiving Day – finally moments from home – he replays key exchanges between he and John Candy’s Del. The math adds up quickly – Del’s much talked about wife is out of the picture. Neal returns to the subway station and finds a lonely John Candy sitting by himself – waiting another holiday out with no home to return to.

Neal: “There is no home, is there Del?”Del: “My wife died 5 years ago.”

That leads to a great parting shot of Neal and Del – walking up to Del’s picture perfect suburban manse as Thanksgiving twilight descends – and a movie that had me busting a gutt for 90-odd minutes sends me out into the streets feeling warm all over.

2. Rudy

Following his turn as Samwise, it’s become too easy to pigeon-hold Sean Astin as a punchline. In fact, My Name is Earl featured this classic line accompanying Earl and Randy’s visit to college:

“This is just like that time that Hobbit Rudy went to college.”

I remember that time Randy. It was all our plucky little hero could do to get into his dream school Notre Dame and play a game for the Fighting Irish. While Rudy follows the same footprint established by other underdog tales – from Rocky to The Mighty Ducks – Rudy is buoyed by a great performance by Sean Astin, some solid local color and a tremendous Jerry Goldsmith score that nicely underscores Rudy’s troubles. (BTW This is the film where Vince Vaughn befriended John Favreau – so you Swingers fans ought to be crying tears of joy).

Now, as emotional as Rudy’s big score is – where he finally makes it onto the field and plays a series of downs in his last game in his last year of eligibility – the tears drop earlier. After watching Rudy work his blue-collar ass off to pump his grade northward at a local community college – and seeing him receive rejection letter after rejection letter – Rudy’s first major milestone is finally realized. Grabbing another letter from the campus mail room – Rudy heads to a bench beside a nearby river (the trees decked out in their late autumnal glory) and begins to read what he thinks is the same old story. As Goldsmith’s score kicks in – the tears flow – and Rudy chokes over every last syllable of “You have been officially accepted at…” – and right there, my boy Rudy makes me so proud. Oh sure, the ‘slow clap’ that occurs later in the film may get some in their soft spot (you know the sequence where one beefy lineman intones – RUUU-DEEEE, RUUUU-DEEEE – and is soon joined by the entire collegiate chorus) but for me – it’s Rudy’s simple acceptance letter, the culmination of all that hard work, that makes me so damn proud.

1. My Girl

All right – let’s face it – this movie is a chick flick (which I usually loathe) and at the time it came out, it was famous for being the flick that dared to kill Macauley Culkin. Hell, Uncle Buck couldn’t even swing that and you know Candy had to have taken a swipe or two at this precocious little moppet.

Anyway – I didn’t catch this in the theater – but in my Junior year at UMASS Amherst, they ran this thing all day and night on our local Campus cable station.

One day I found myself sequestered in my dorm room with a few of my softball team cronies. All told, there has to be about six or seven of us fine specimens of testosterone prime sitting around planning that day’s line-up while Anna Chlumsky’s Veda ambled her way through young love with Macauley’s Thomas J. in the background.

At some point, we stopped trying to work the particulars of my patented infield ‘bait n’ switch’ and turned our gaze to the flick. It was at this point that Thomas J. lost his glasses dangerously close to a buzzing bee hive.

Now, I had heard all about this damned movie. I knew Thomas J. was allergic to everything. I knew that Mac died in the flick and the camera kept hovering over these bees clueing me in to the fact they’d be accomplices in the dirty deed. Yet the moment came, Mac’s glasses hit the dirt, and suddenly were at his funeral – held in Veda’s Dad’s Funeral Parlor. When Veda, who has refused to take a look at her pal’s dead body, finally enters the viewing room and makes a beeline (sorry) towards his casket, my eyes gave way.

Now here’s where it gets real awkward. I’m in a room with several compadres. There’s no crying in baseball. As I started to wipe feverishly at my cheeks – hoping to dry the deluge – I caught each and every one of them in pantomime of my actions. Then it hit me. We weren’t baseball players. We played softball. Do you know how many Coronas get spilled during a 7-inning frame? There’s nothing but crying in softball.

Now one of us was missing – our buddy Eric – who I had known since high school. Back at Rockland High, Eric (or Buzz) was our starting quarterback. He was one of those Everybody’s All American types too – with the brains to go with the brawns. I hadn’t noticed it, but Buzz had slipped out of the room around the time we all got our period. I thought to myself – “Yeah, that’s Buzz. All Man, Baby.”

The illusion was shattered when our friend Kirsten waltzed into the room. Without skipping a beat, she offered up:

“Hey, do you guy’s know what happened to Buzz? He’s around the corner crying.”

We went 0 and 33 that season and the following year all transferred to Julliard.

Comments now closed (31)

I have only gotten overly emotional while watching movies in my old age, so my list will be more current (also because I can’t remember too far in the past), but you are totally right about My Girl. That was a very sad ending, but I don’t remember crying when I saw it, but I probably would have now.

That said, here’s my not-so-all-time list:
5. Superman Returns – Yup, just saw it and while I didn’t quite cry, I welled up when Superman visits Jason at the end.
4. V for Vendetta – The whole ending and when Evey reads the letters. Ed mentions both in his item on V in his Top 5 Comic Book Flicks post.
3. The Green Mile – Don’t tell me you don’t shed a tear when they do the deed.
2. The Break-Up – Another recent one, but too many things in this movie hit too close to home for me. I mentioned in my review that it smacks me in the face; well it makes me cry.
1. Empire of the Sun – When Malkovich’s crew kills his Japanese friend and when he is reunited with his parents. This is also my all-time favorite movie.

Honorable mention for TV because I remembered these two while writing this: Dawson’s Creek when they killed his father and Smallville when they kill Pa Kent. I prolly get choked up about them because they are such good fathers and I wouldn’t shed a tear if my own father died.

I tend not to well up so much at traditionally “sad” things at noble things, especially noble sacrifices. Here’s a few that get me teary-eyed:

Armageddon—I hate this film for its shameless manipulation of my emotions, but if I’m being honest I have to admit that Willis’s sacrifice nailed me when I first saw the movie. Curse you, Brucky.

The Fellowship of the Ring—Boromir’s death scene, both when he’s getting shot and his speech to Aragorn.

The Return of the Jedi—Vader taking out the Emperor to save his son. Got me at the tender age of 5 and it still gets me now, even after the prequel mess. It just goes to show, fatherly love trumps loyalty to withered evil overlords.

The Two Towers—When Theoden and Aragorn charge out into the orc army at the end, and then Gandalf and Eomer come to save the day as the sun comes up behind them.

The Whole Wide World—a wonderful movie about Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard. Vincent D’Onofrio plays Howard and Renee Zellweger plays a woman he has a brief relationship with, and whose memoirs the film is based on. Howard took his own life in 1936 at the age of 30, so you can imagine why the end of the movie makes me cry.

5. Godzilla (Emmerich Version)
4. ID4 (Kubrick Version)
3. All 9 Seasons of the X-Files at $89 a pop – when years later they would be discounted to $19.99 a set
2. 10 Different Versions of Army of Darkness
1. Disturbing Behavior

Oops, my bad. I thought this was the area for Top 5 DVD Purchases That Made Me Cry

Glad to see you guys showing your bravery as well. Now, were are the others?

@Sean – ‘V’ had me as well – for thse very scenes you mentioned – so I’ll pop that down at number 6. The Green Mile makes another list of mine (Top 5 Frank Darabont Adaptations of Stephen King Prison Dramas) but it certainly had its moments and is a fine film. Actually – Shawshank hit me harder – in the sequence where Red finds himself out of prison and completely alienated. The way the scene is constructed – matching beat by beat of the earlier release of the elderly Brooks and his eventual suicide – had me fearing the worst. Then it ends on a nice grace note – where Brooks had carved “Brooks was here” in his final gesture before hanging himself, the camera floats above a departing Red and sees he has scrawled “So was Red.” Don’t worry – Shawshank shows up on another list.

This is the beauty of the Top 5 list – it’s so hard to come up with an end all – be all Top 10 list – so if you love movies – why not dole out a number of awards.

@Jason – Agreed on heroic acts – they get me every time. Armageddon finds its way in my Top Ten – as shameless as Bay is he knows how to juice the emotions.

Honorable Mention – Forrest Gump, and not for the obvious “You died on a Sunday morning” speech to Jenn-ayyys’ grave. My moment came early in the movie, when young Forrest climbed aboard a school bus and each student shuffled in their spot with a terse “Seat’s tah-ken.” And then Jenny speaks up and says “You can sit here.” Yup, that one got me as well.

Believe it or not, I’ve always had a soft spot for “Home Alone”. In fact, it’s a tradition of mine to watch it on Christmas night every year. It was nice to see it represented in Ed’s post and for the very reason I like it so much. Although I am a sensitive person, I don’t usually cry at movies (or weddings for that matter) but when the situations are particularly realistic and awful, I’ve been known to cry, cry, cry. Here are my top five …

Also – when I saw Schindler’s List – the film broke just as the movie was reaching its emotinal crescendo. The entire audience was lifted from the dark and bathed in bright light for a full 20 minutes before they got it working again. When the film started running again, it was too late, my mind was already racing over whether I wanted an Awesome Blossum or Go Go Taquito when we got to The Pub. Another argument in favor of digital projection.

5. Turner & Hooch – the gutwrenching loss of a true hero… followed by the emergence of new hope. Now that’s a one-two punch.
4. Life as a House – He knew what he had to do in the end.
3. Spiderman 2 – The “reveal” gets me every time
2. Karate Kid – Two words… Crane Technique
1. Rocky IV – “During the fight, I’ve seen a lot of changing, in the way I feel about you, and the way you feel about me. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I can change, and you can change, everyone can change.”

I should kick number 5 out of mine in favor of Saving Private Ryan. Not sure how I forgot that one, but it had me for at least the last half hour. I’d have to put that at #2 and shift everything down.

Also, since you guys are talking Bay, I didn’t cry for Armageddon (although I agree Willis’ sacrifice caused a welling), but I did during Pearl Harbor when Josh didn’t make it back. Kill f-ing Affleck ya bastard! Then again, no one would cry for him.

Finally, I guess I’ll throw Elf in there for my new annual Christmas movie — last two years anyway — but, I agree that Diehard is a good choice, but I watched that one too much in high school. Obviously, Home Alone as well and Christmas Vacation gets an honorable mention. For the record, I did cry this past year watching Elf.

Hmmm…I would have to think a little more for my top 5, but the Top 2 are easy for me…
2. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? – The moment Sidney Poitier says to his father, Ossie Davis ” You see yourself as a colored man, I see myself as a man”
1. To Kill a Mockingbird ” Stand up, Scout, your father’s passin'”

5. Empire Strikes back…vader is Luke’s dad at Seven years old…definitely upsetting
4. Dead poets society…neil committing suicide
3. Still we believe….Tim Wakefield saying “I don’t wanna be the next Bill Buckner” after still being the MVP of the that series and having Grady hang him out there…so much pain.
2. The crying game…not for the movie but for choosing it as a first date movie….there was no second.
1. Schindler’s list.. nuff said

Here’s a great memory of a conversation I have stitched to memory. The night of Game 7 of the ALCS – Uncle Ron called me en route home from CT. He wanted to wish me well with the night game but couched the greeting in some sage advice – “I don’t know how it will happen… but trust me, it will happen. They’ll break your heart.” After 2003 and Gradygate, I had nowhere to go but to put my faith in the great man who has done so much for me – who I trust with every ounce of soul.

But I caught a faint whisper – “to hell with that, this is our year.” Perhaps it was a final gasp – one last shriek sounded out by eighty six years of disenchanted spirits.

I’ve never been so happy to see my uncle – one of the world’s great men – proven wrong. Plus, I could take comfort in the fact that he shared my thoughts.

The HD cable box I got the other day gives me all the pay channels, so it must be a week promo or something so that I can see the glorious HD movies. Anyway, I finally got to see Wedding Crashers and it made me cry.

well many of these movies i have not seen yet and the ones that i have seen are very sad…but at the moment i can only think of my top 3.

3. the fox and the hound- when the todd,the fox, is taken into the woods by his “mother” and leaves him there so he can be wild and todd just stares after her car its heartwrenching

2.braveheart-at the end of the film when william wallace yells out “freedom” right before he gets his head chopped of it is so sad.
and my top one is..

1.the lord of the rings:the return of the king-during the middle of the movie when frodo tells sam to go home it just brings tears to your eyes.and at the end of the movie when frodo leaves middle earth forever going to the undying lands he says goodbye to all of his friends and i just start to break down there.

Okay, I’ll bite…but remember, these are the top 5 movies I’ve seen make your Uncle Ron cry, he may have a very different list. And, I might add to be fair, each of these, save for #1, had an effect on me too. However, for those who don’t know it, Ron is a TOTAL CHICK when it comes to movies! Which is good, because every couple should have at least one…

5. Field of Dream When Ray sees it’s his own father that he built the field for, and asks him to play catch, every childhood moment of playing catch came flooding back. ( My version of this moment would have been A League of their Own ). I caught a side glance of Big Ron in the theater, and lost it on my own.

4.Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V – the dramatic St Crispin’s Day speech (“We happy few”) followed by the very moving walk across the battlefield at Agincourt to Non Nobis,Domine leaves you in stunned wet-eyed silence each and every time you see it. It is one of Uncle Ron’s favorite movies and I can’t even look at him during this scene, leaving him his privacy.

3.Father of the Bride I had rented this once when he was out, watched it, suggested that he watch it before I had to return it ( remember those days?). I had not warned him of the total emotional beating he would take as the daddy of a very little girl at the time ( and he never saw the original). By the time Steve Martin is walking his little girl down the aisle and the end with his little soliloquy, Ron was a mess on the living room rug. I recall he asked for a box of tissues and asked me how I could ever have let him watch that. For the record, that was a time when he wondered if he would EVER be able to give Jessi away…now that doesn’t seem to be much of an issue!

2.Ghost Another rental back in the day when it was a pizza and Endless Video for an evening out! We saw it in our first house, and during the end scene, when Sam is saying goodbye to Molly, Ron is sobbing softly…as the credits rolled, he tearfully asked me if I would miss him like that if he ever died…My answer ” If you looked Like Patrick Swayze…” Somebody’s gotta be the guy around here…

1.The Way We Were We saw this at the old Braintree Cinema on one of our first dates. We always sat on an exit row, for the extra leg room, and we were close to a door-and that’s important to the story! As the Robert Redford/Barbra Streisand epic winds down, and the music swells, and the credits roll, I reach for my jacket, turn to my right for my date to tell him ” That was pretty good”…and he’s gone! I look around, notice the exit door, and check out there, where I find my big strong Ivy League jock with his face buried in his hands openly weeping. He chokes out “I…was…okay…until she touched his hair at the end”…what to do…what to do? I can cut my losses after a couple of weeks and say ” See ya’ little lady” as I head out to FSU, or I can recognize what a mush he is and make that work for me. Obviously, I chose the latter. He has no recollection of this incident, but I can assure you that it happened just this way.

Be prepared for Uncle Ron to gather his ‘nads and try to refute these…but don’t believe the little girly man!!

That said, your ‘Father of the Bride’ moment reminds me of my introduction to Aria. As I stood with baited breath as the doctor completed Aria’s delivery, Andi and I had still not learned the sex of our baby. We were hoping for a girl to complete the nuclear family but roughly two weeks prior, Andi came to the realization that even if we had a second boy, that would be just grand (essentially her little way of saying – “Ain’t no way I’m shopping at Motherhood ever again.”)

So, with the sex of our child a complete mystery – although both of us thinking ‘boy’ in our heads – the nurse finally revealed the mystery. Only, she didn’t say “It’s a boy” and she ddn’t say “It’s a girl.”

Instead, she offered – “Congratulations Dad. You are going to walk someone down the aisle one day.”

At that, Aria’s life flashed before my eyes. The first breath. The first steps. Onward through Tumblebugs and Gymnastics and Disney Princess and Flavor-of-the-Month-on-Ice and first phones and first credit cards and first dates onward up and down the aisle and then it hit me. To get married meant to date. To date meant meeting a fella.

In response to your first post about Aria’s arrival…We, also, did not know the sex of our second child, since this was long before you even had the option of knowing. Having miscarried 3 girls before, the chances were pretty slim one slipped through, but when the doctor made that fateful announcement, Ron’s first words were ” Oh honey, it’s Jessica, we’ll have such fun planning her wedding!”. My first thought was that she was now christened Jessica, not the Sarah I had lobbied for. In the recovery room, over an Olympic pizza brought in by the new daddy, we debated the ” Father-Daughter” song, he insisting on ” Daddy’s Little Girl” ( the song that reduces him to burying his face in a linen napkin at weddings), or my choice ” My Girl” by the Temptations. We hadn’t even held her yet.
She will be 24 on Friday, she’s still daddy’s little girl…sometimes…and she means the world to me.

Jessi actually just brought up Always too, but it is essentially the same vapid storyline as Ghost, which means watch for the waterworks from your Dad!
As far as the Star Trek movies go, the funeral for Spock got me a little, but when the Enterprise broke free of the space dock in the first one, I actually cried.But we aren’t talking about me!
And what a bunch o’ wusses in this family!